Options

The PDF production tool

Options is an Acrobat plug-in for setting multiple options for PDF files in batch. The open and security options, index, general information (title, subject etc.) and form fields of all the PDF files within a selected directory can be set. There is also a watched directory facility and an OLE server (Windows only), see the Main Features section for more information.

Options will process secure files by asking for the passwords before it begins work.

More Details

To process one or more PDF files the user has to:

1. Set up the Default Settings to apply from the Options menu. From here, all the required open and security options, information and form fields, hyperfeatures, indexes etc to be applied later can be specified.
2. Select a file or directory to process.
3. Process the PDF file(s) with `Apply to File...' or `Apply to Directory'.

Main Features

Note that Options for Macintosh is Options version 1.01, and does not have all the features listed below. Please view the Options on-line guide for Mac for details, available by installing the evaluation version for Macintosh.

Watched directories

PDF files can have new settings applied by dropping them into defined watched directories. Each directory can have different settings applied if desired.

OLE server

An OLE server allows other applications to call Options to apply settings to a single PDF or a batch of them.

Apply to Directory and Apply to File

You can apply settings to a directory of PDFs or a single PDF file.

Optimisation

PDF files can be saved as optimised for use on the web etc. (i.e. "fast web view" or page-at-a-time downloading).

Doc Info fields

Export and import document information fields to be processed on a batch of files. Fields can be exported to a CSV file which could then be edited in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel and imported to Options for processing. Custom fields can be created and edited as well as the standard Title, Subject, Author and Keywords fields.

Form fields

Export and import text form field values to/from a CSV file. As above, these could be edited in a spreadsheet, then import the CSV file to change the field values.

Hyperfeatures

You can change properties of links, notes, bookmarks and articles or remove some, or all, of them in batch. You can also copy them from a template document to all the files being processed, and are able to create thumbnails.

Index

Attach an index to automatically load when the file is opened in Acrobat.

Page orientation

All pages can be rotated to be portrait or landscape.

Page reversal

You can reverse the page order. Useful with some printer drivers which reverse the output.